Alastair Little: A Life through Food
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 976 Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As he prepares to move to Australia, leaving a lasting culinary legacy here in the UK, chef and food writer Alastair Little shares his life in food with Sheila Dillon.
Born in Lancashire, from a very early age Alastair Little paid careful attention to the food and flavours around him. On early holidays around Europe with his parents, his eyes (and tastebuds) started to open up to a new world of possibility. After graduating from university, a career in food was far from clear; but 1970s Soho in London became the launchpad for a self-taught chef who has had a real and lasting impact.
His eponymous restaurant in Frith Street was pioneering; and legendary - and a new generation of chefs passed through its kitchen, sat at the tables and drank at its bar. His books, including Keep it Simple (written with Richard Whittington) and Alastair Little's Italian Kitchen, transmitted his simple, thoughtful approach to home cooks all over Britain.
Featuring chefs Angela Hartnett and Jeremy Lee, baker and food writer Dan Lepard, former Editor of the Good Food Guide Tom Jaine, and the chef, restaurateur and writer Jacob Kenedy.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.
Transcript
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| 0:48.8 | This is a story about the power of restaurants and food books to make life better. |
| 0:59.0 | At its heart is an original who trusted his taste buds and food enthusiasms from an early age. |
| 1:05.0 | In 1975 my cooking career was launched at the old Compton Wine Bar on the street of that name. |
| 1:11.0 | Launched is perhaps the wrong word, |
| 1:13.4 | Kickstarter more like, in that the chef left and I volunteered to have a go. |
| 1:18.2 | The very next day I was cooking eight to lunches, |
| 1:20.9 | armed with a copy of Elizabeth David's French provincial cooking and a self-confidence |
| 1:25.1 | that can only be viewed as foolhardy. |
| 1:28.2 | A small section in the Times diary made several pleasant comments about the wines and the |
| 1:31.9 | quality of the bread and the cheeses, |
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